APPLE VALLEY • A local nonprofit that hopes to encourage high school students to do more volunteer work in their community, gave out nine scholarships Saturday.

The Don Ferrarese Foundation handed out $4,000 scholarships to one college-bound student from each of the local high schools. In all, the nonprofit has given out 88 scholarships since 2008.

The teens were selected through an application and essay process. But a large part of their consideration was based upon how many hours of community service they had completed, foundation President Daniel Tate said.

“We now live in a time where the guy who runs faster or scores more points gets the free education and is plastered all over the fronts of the papers,” Tate said. “The members of the Ferrarese Foundation hold that it’s kids like our recipients who have found the true meaning in life, and have established themselves among a foundation that will support a very meaningful life.”

Granite Hills High School graduate Mackenzie Thompson volunteered the highest number of hours at 1,241. Her service included work with the outpatient department at St. Joseph Health, St. Mary; Congressman Paul Cook’s office; Apple Valley Care Center; and in her youth group with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“It was an honor because all of the other people that applied are really good,” Thompson said about receiving the award. “I was excited.”

Thompson said she plans to attend Brigham Young University-Idaho to study nursing.

She wrote in her application essay: “Volunteering has a tremendously positive effect on every community. Serving others has a rippling effect on each person who benefits.”

The other students awarded scholarships, their school and the amount of hours they volunteered are as follows:

Michael Coulter, Academy of Academic Excellence, 246

Marlea Landini, Apple Valley High School, 994

Emily Rubio, Barstow High School, 208

Cori Arnold, Hesperia High School, 377

Thania Torres, Lucerne Valley High School, 227

Troy Kutch, Oak Hills High School, 400

Jamie Anton, Serrano High School, 134

Elizabeth Aguilar, Sultana High School, 472

The ceremony was jammed packed with inspiring and motivating messages given by both Don Ferrarese and Tate. Ferrarese, 83, talked about his career as a Major League Baseball player and his family’s history in California and Apple Valley. He told the graduates to cherish “true friends” and “trust only those you can trust.”

Tate passed out items such as a compass, “thank you” cards, clocks and a plastic shield and sword to each of the students. With each item he shared a piece of advice. For example, the clock represented the lesson that “your time is valuable.”

“What would the world look like if we all waited?” Tate asked as he spoke to the attendees. “Man finds ultimate meaning in life at the love of another and a dedication to a cause greater than himself,” Tate said, quoting Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”